History, Opinions, Imaginings

Packers on the Job

One of the things that’s hard to conceive these days is that in the past professional football players had to find jobs in the offseason because football did not pay well enough to support them. Football was not an all-year thing in those days and there was no chance that a player would sign a contract that would make them “set for life.”

The player profiles in the 1954 game programs made note of what players did for a living off the gridiron. It’s interesting to imagine today’s players with the same responsibilities. Here are some of the more interesting jobs held by 1954 players with the current Packers at their positions in parentheses:

Hawg Hanner (B.J. Raji) worked on his dad’s farm.

Bobby Dillon (Ha Ha Clinton-Dix) accountant at a lumberyard

Al Carmichael (James Starks) movie extra

Jerry Helluin (Leroy Guion) postal worker

Roger “Zany” Zatkoff (Clay Matthews) teacher

John Martinkovic (Mike Daniels) construction foreman

Dave “Trapper” Stephenson (Corey Linsley) lifeguard

Dick Afflis (Sitton or Lang) employed at Harold’s Club in Reno, Nevada (probably as a bouncer)